The title of this article came from the mouth of PocketFiver Dainis ex6tenceBudovskis, who was part of a three-way chop of the PokerStars Sunday 500 last month and walked away with $45,000. The member of the Latvia poker community is over $1.1 million in tracked online poker cashes and has been part of PocketFives since early 2012.

I feel like I can take a vacation now,” Budovskis jokingly told PocketFives in an exclusive interview. “With aggressive bankroll management playing high-stakes, there is pressure all the time. Now, it’s gone for some time.” In June, Budovskis won the Saturday Super Knockout on PokerStars for $22,000. He took down a SCOOP mid-stakes event in May for $21,000.

As we said at the top, the tournament was chopped three ways. “I was playing for like 17 hours or more,” Budovskis explained when asked why the chop went down. “I was so tired at the end that I wasn’t feeling my best game. Although there were big pay jumps, I felt like I was okay with what I would get just to get some security.”

The Latvian has been on a tear so far in 2013 and there are still three months left in the year. Budovskis remarked, “After working on my game and playing a lot, there are almost no situations anymore where I don’t know what to do. I feel pretty confident in all of the limits I play with all of the players I play against. I still have some work to do. I want to study a bit more math, although I think I’m good at it. I need to study ICM at final tables when chopping.”

Budovskis has been a full-time poker pro for three years now and told us, “It took a while to understand how complicated poker is.” He is the top ranked player in all of Latvia, a country that is facing off against Lithuania this month in PocketFives’ first ever Baltic Battle on Winamax.

When we caught up with Budovskis, he was planning to head to an Estrellas Poker Tour stop in Barcelona, Spain. The tournament series begins next weekend and wraps up on September 1. He admitted, “I have almost no experience with live poker, so I think Estrellas will be a good start to learning live. The series takes place in the same hotel as EPT Barcelona, so it will be cool to be there.”

What is he expecting out oflive poker? Will he feel as comfortable as he is online or will he be completely out of his element? Budovskis speculated, “I want to feel like home. It can take a long time, so I will be really happy if I make the money. What I need to do is study live poker strategy. I’ve played like six times in my life and there have always been problems for me with chip counts at tables. That’s the first thing to study: seeing chips, knowing how much players have, and knowing what can I do against my opponents.”

Let’s talk a little bit about the Latvia poker community. There are over 400 registered PocketFivers in Latvia (pictured) who have combined winnings in online MTTs of nearly $15 million. Latvia is dominating our Baltic Battle on Winamax and Budovskis holds the record for the most number of tracked cashes by a Latvian player at nearly 3,900.

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